


Behind the Mask

by maybemochas



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Langst, Season 2, Slight Klance - Freeform, serious fucking langst, you dont need to squint but it is very small
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 04:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9476585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybemochas/pseuds/maybemochas
Summary: I don’t care what Shiro said to you. I don’t care if the others accept this. I don’t care about any of it any more. You. Willnever be my leader.





	

“We believe you are our savior.”

Lance’s eyes grew wide as Plaxum and the others bowed their heads. They… what? He felt an icy chill through his whole body as he looked at them questioningly,

“You guys think I’m your savior…?” 

This had to be some kind of joke. There’s no way they could be serious. They must have wanted Hunk instead or maybe his earlier hunch was right and this was some sort of joke or trick.

“What do you want with me?”

Blumpfump looked back up as he explained,

“The queen is mind-swishing everyone, controlling their thoughts. We believe you can stop her.”

Lance was confused. He didn’t understand. He looked at the three strange merpeople in front of him, all of them so full of… trust? In him?

They had left Hunk behind. There was no way he could do anything on his own. He was just… Lance. These people clearly chose the wrong paladin, surely they knew that they made the wrong choice choosing to expect him to save their people.

Why were they looking at him like some sort of savior? He didn’t understand, but he knew he had to try. He was still a paladin of Voltron for what it was worth. Lance felt dread pool at the bottom of his stomach and barely flinched as one of the many small jellyfish latched onto the pocket of air surrounding his head.

\---

Yup. He knew it, total mistake.

As the guards dragged him into the throne room Lance cursed his luck. The queen looked down at him with a slightly amused expression,

“I had a feeling you would come for your vessel… Servant, take Lance to the Baku Garden.”

Lance gasped as the door to his side slid open to reveal his best friend Hunk. Instead of relief he felt a sense of dread as he saw the blank expression on his face.

“Hunk...?”

Lance shook as Hunk smoothly swam towards him and followed the queen’s orders,  


"Hey, buddy, it’s me.. Snap out of it, it’s Lance!”

Completely ignoring Lance’s words Hunk grabbed his arms and held them to his sides before pushing Lance towards the exit of the room. Lance looked back at his friend as he was lead out before he groaned and decided that even if it was Hunk, he wouldn’t go quiet if he had the choice. 

Reaching his hand down ever so slightly, Lance grabbed the small pufferfish the others had given him and quickly spun out of Hunk’s grasp. However, Hunk reacted faster than Lance and quickly knocked the small fish out of Lance’s hand,

“Damn it!”

Lance tried to swim after the fish floating away from him as Hunk attempted to grab him again. The shout of the queen caught his attention and he turned back to see the two guards from earlier advancing in on him. Lance panicked as they came closer and searched his surroundings frantically before ripping off the mushroom-like light plating behind him.

He threw it at the two guards only to groan in disappointment the moment he saw it slow in the water. _Of course_ he had managed to fuck that up.

Lance let out a small yelp as he activated the boosters on his suit and dodged the guards. As he moved through the water he noticed the small fish not too far away. He reached out to grab it and his hands barely managed to wrap tightly around the fish before a large yellow blur in his sight slammed into him, knocking all the air out of his lungs from the impact.

Lance barely managed to keep his grasp on the fish as Hunk grabbed his ankle and flung him into the wall. _Hard._ Lance gasped as his back collided against the wall, resulting in a sharp pain that wracked his entire body.

The shock caused Lance to loosen his grip on the small fish and he barely had time to see it slowly float towards the ground before Hunk grabbed him again and and slammed his body against the wall once more.

Lance gasped as the pain flooded his body again before choking out,

“Hunk, please. I don’t want to hurt you!”

Hunk’s dead eyes bore into his own as he replied flatly, “Must keep queen safe and warm.”

Lance gritted his teeth as he activated the boosters on his feet and kicked Hunk away from him. The moment his feet collided with Hunk’s body Lance had to resist the urge to throw up. Even if Hunk seemed fine, it still killed him to even attempt to hurt his best friend like that.

Lance tore his eyes away from Hunk as he crashed into the guards and quickly sped towards the small fish that now rested on the floor below. His fingers barely brushed it before a strong impact collided with his body, sending him face first into the ground harshly before he bounced off the ground and floated away.

He tried to reach for the small fish again, hoping to slip past Hunk, but Hunk quickly grabbed onto the jellyfish still on his head and pulled back. Lance used his boosters to get in range of the fish and closed his eyes as he kicked the fish in an arc towards Hunk’s face.

As the grip on him loosened, Lance let out a breath of relief as he heard Hunk’s confused and very much _not mind controlled_ voice yelp in surprise. Lance floated weakly as he watched Hunk regain his senses before he turned to Lance asking what had happened.

Lance sighed, there was still a lot more work to be done before these people were saved. Ignoring the aches that throbbed throughout his entire body Lance began to explain the situation to Hunk. 

Lance thought bitterly to himself as he spoke. After all, now that they had the stronger of two paladins on their side, these people stood a chance, right?

\---

Lance groaned internally as the group interrogated the Galran soldier chained in front of them. He was still extremely bitter on how badly he did against the man. 

Sure, technically speaking the only one out of all of them who had stood his ground was Shiro but _still_. He was the first one to encounter the Galran. He should have been able to do something other than get his ass handed to him.

In all honestly the offhand comments from Coran watching him struggle during that battle did nothing but irritate Lance more.

As Hunk worriedly asked about there being other Galra from this _Blade of Marmora_ group Lance turned towards him and snapped,

“Hunk, can you try not to act so scared around the chained up prisoner? It makes us seem a little lame.”

Lance felt a twinge of regret as Hunk’s face shifted from surprise to disheartened. Hunk and the rest of the group quickly turned their attention back to the Galran as he spoke and Lance bit the inside of his cheek in annoyance.

He shouldn’t have done that. Taking out his frustrations on Hunk and making an ass of himself wasn’t going to help anyone. If anything it would just make him more of a burden to the team.  
As they all continued to talk Lance noticed Keith staring at him from behind with a calculating stare. The moment Lance glanced towards Keith, the red paladin snapped his attention back in the other direction.

If it had been any other day Lance might have been happy to have caught Keith looking his way, but lately he had just been too upset to care about any of that. Lance sighed as he told himself Keith was probably just looking at him because he was disappointed in his outburst towards Hunk.

As he focused back in on the conversation he realized the group had already come to a decision as Hunk and Pidge volunteered themselves for the mission, both looking extremely excited.

Lance quickly slapped on his usually carefree mask as he made some flirtatious comment about Allura and staying to protect her. The audible groan of disappointment and annoyance he received from the princess reflected exactly how he felt about himself. Not that anyone else needed to be burdened with that of course. He was weighing down the team enough as is.

As they all split up in their separate groups, each with a job to do, Lance headed towards the doorway. He paused for a moment as he felt someone’s eyes watching his back, but ignored it and kept walking anyways.

\---

Pidge’s eyes scanned the strange glowing device as her features scrunched in concentration. They all watched her as Allura and Coran panicked over the comms before suddenly her arms shot forwards, twisting the small knobs with quick precision and accuracy. 

As she twisted the large handle on the top, the red glow of the ship was replaced with the calm blue light they had grown accustomed to.

Allura praised Pidge’s work over the comm as Pidge turned to look at the device with stars in her eyes,

“The tech on this ship never ceases to amaze me! It’s so mathematically elegant. Its fit is a hundred times more frictionless than any exoskeleton we have on Earth. It’s…. _Beautiful_.” 

Lance sighed as she finished her small rant. He had never been able to keep up when she got invested in something and it honestly made him feel unintelligent at times.

“It’s not a sunset Pidge.”

Pidge looked at him like he was an idiot, sending a sharp pain through Lance’s already wounded pride,

“You’re right. A billion sunsets just happen every day. Some genius engineer actually _built this_.”

Pidge lightly pushed the device back into the shell of the castle before the conversation. Lance did his best not to let his emotions show on his face as the rest continued their conversation, brushing him off easily.

It wasn’t until Hunk got hit in the face with something similar to a space snowball that Lance felt some of the tension in him release. He picked up a small snowball and looked at it in his hand. He gave a weak smile as he shoved down his feelings before grinning and throwing the object in Keith’s direction.

\---

Allura and Keith left. 

Together. 

Alone. 

In the middle of the night without telling anyone.

Alright, fine. That’s just fine with Lance. He totally wasn’t internally screaming in frustration the moment the team discovered this bit of information. If Keith and the princess wanted to leave to group on their own then he didn’t care. He totally wasn’t jealous. Not at all.

Shiro gave the order to Coran interrupting Lance’s internal distress, “Contact that pod.”

Lance pumped his fist, “Yeah, contact that pod!”

Coran’s voice echoed in the control room and the small pod that was far away from the Castle of Lions at this point. 

“Princess, Keith, where are you?”

Allura’s voice rang through the room as she spoke over the comm,  
“Exactly where we should be, far away from the Castle.”

All of their eyes widened in surprise. Shiro was the first one to speak,

“What? Why?”

Allura’s voice stayed firm as she replied,

“We must know if we are the ones Zarkon is tracking.”

Pidge instantly broke into the conversation as she grasped the concept,

“They’re isolating the variable. Well, isolating two variables.”

Lance’s head was pounding. He closed his eyes as he took in the situation before turning towards Pidge,

“In English, please?”

Pidge looked down at their screen as they attempted to re-explain,

“In order to test a hypothesis…”

Lance grit his teeth and snapped for the second time in the past 24 hours, “I said English!”

Lance’s eyes widened and he felt a rush of regret as Pidge jumped from the sudden outburst. Lance cursed at himself even more as he watched her cross her arms and close in on herself,

“Never mind…”

Before Lance could apologize, Allura’s voice cut back through the comm once more,

“Pidge is right. If Zarkon finds you despite my absence, we will know with total certainty that we are not the ones he’s tracking.”

Shiro shook his head as he called out,

“Splitting up the group makes us far more vulnerable. Come back to the castle immediately.”

Allura paused for a moment and the group waited in silence before her voice, slightly softer than before replied,

“I’m sorry Shiro. I cannot do that.”

At this moment Keith’s voice cut through the comm and Lance felt his breath catch in his throat,

“If Zarkon does find us, I can pilot us to safety. We’re in wide-open space with plenty of room to maneuver. Plus, we’d be able to outrun him. Pidge added that booster rocket.”

Lance drowned out the rest of the conversation. He knew Keith was lying, there’s no way in hell he wouldn’t have stopped Allura unless he had been planning on leaving the group himself.

Lance knew that Keith would have only gotten on that pod for one reason… He believed somehow _he_ was the one Zarkon was tracking… But why?

Before he could think it through anymore the ship suddenly jolted with violent movements and the castle alarms blared loudly. 

Lance looked up to see the large radioactive planet surrounded by debris that they were approaching blindly. He sighed as he willed the bad feeling in his gut back down. They were mostly likely headed right into something bad and they didn’t even have Keith to form Voltron.

Great.

\---

Lance grit his teeth as Shiro brushed him off, _again_. Of course he was taking Keith, lately everything was about Keith. It didn’t matter if he was hot headed and irrational. It apparently didn’t even fucking matter that he literally just blew up at the team less than a minute ago.

No, not at all. That’s fine take Keith, the strong, skilled fighter pilot. Mr. Better than Everyone Else, too good to be bothered with someone like Lance. 

Lance’s tried not to let the disappointment and anger show on his face but felt the carefree mask his had been forcing himself to wear slowly start to crack and slip off,

“Keith’s a hothead! He’s probably going to shoot first and ask questions later! Any they’re not gonna be able to answer his question because _they’ll all be dead!!!_ ” 

Lance knew he had overstepped his boundaries as he stood face to face glaring at Shiro who was glaring back just as hard. The room fell silent before Shiro ground out,

“We haven’t yet severed Zarkon’s link with the black lion, so it has to stay here.”

Shiro grabbed Lance’s shoulders and pushed Lance away from him as he continued to speak,

“ _And_ the red lion can withstand the heat from that sun. _So yes._ It’ll be Keith.”  
Lance crossed his arms and refused to meet anyone's eyes as they all looked at him. Coran cut in and began to explain the plan, pulling everyone’s attention back to the large screen. Lance couldn’t tell which was more suffocating, his frustration, his embarrassment, or his hurt from how easily the team forgot about him to focus on Keith and Shiro’s _big mission_ instead.

As soon as the team was finished discussing the plan to send Shiro and Keith into the Marmora base Lance marched quickly out of the room. Lance stormed through the large halls with no particular destination.

He needed to get away. From all of them, from all of… _This._

He didn’t make it too far away before he heard a voice behind him shout his name. He stopped in his tracks but refused to turn around.

The sound of Keith’s running steps slowed as he caught up to where Lance was standing. Keith rested his hands on his knees as he bent over and caught his breath for a moment. He stood back up straight as walked closer to Lance as he spoke,

“What was that back there? What’s been going on with you? You haven’t been yourself lately.”

Keith reached his hand out towards Lance’s back before he froze as Lance’s cold tone cut through him,

“It was nothing. Why should you care anyways? You have your big special mission to take care of. Don’t let something like me get in the way of that.”

Keith stood in the hall and let his arm fall back to his side as he watched Lance walk down the hallway, not even bothering to look back.

\---

Lance escorted Slav down the hallways as they headed towards the meetup point. The alien was a man of few words but Lance didn’t really mind. He explained who each member of the team was to their new ally as they walked. He liked to talk and lately he hadn’t been given the chance to do much of it lately. No one was really willing to listen…

“Pidge is the hacker of the group. Shiro’s our awesome leader.”

The large alien in front of him replied with another, “Yup.” as he continued.

“Hunk’s our mechanic. He’s also a chef and a pretty cool dude to hang out with.”

After getting yet another “Yup.” in reply, Lance kept speaking,

“And Keith is always doing things like flying into asteroid fields and black holes and junk like that.”

Lance rolled his eyes as Slav replied with another, “Yup.”

“And I thought I was the team’s sharpshooter, but I guess no one else thinks that…”

Lance’s steps slowed to a halt as he looked down.

“Maybe I don’t have a thing…”

The large alien stopped and turned to face Lance replying with yet another “Yup.”

Lance felt a vein twitch by his temple as he snapped, 

“You don’t have to agree with me so quickly!”

Lance continued with thought,

“They wouldn’t keep me on the team if I didn’t contribute in some way… would they?”

The alien said “Yup.” as Lance kept speaking his thoughts out loud,

“Maybe you're right. Maybe I’m just a fifth wheel. _Seventh_ if you count Coran and Allura… That’s a horrible wheel to be.”

“...Yup.”

\---

Shiro was gone.

Lance buried his face in his hands as he sat in the break room with the others. They were all standing in morbid silence as they waited for Allura and Coran to return from the black lion.

Lance remembered the panic they had all felt the moment they saw the black lion floating limply in space. The shock when they reached the lion only to find it empty. Their leader nowhere to be found.

Keith nearly lost his shit the moment the shock of finding the cockpit wore off. He was distraught. 

They all were.

Coran and Allura told the paladins to go wait for them in the break room while they searched the lion for any clues as to where their beloved paladin had disappeared to.

When the two entered the room, all of their heads shot towards the pair. Coran looked like he was doing the best to fight back tears and smiled at them solemnly while Allura’s face had gone dark. She approached the paladins with nothing but Shiro’s helmet. She looked down at it as she spoke,

“We… weren’t able to find anything but this.”

Pidge let out a strangled whimper and Lance clenched his fists tightly. Hunk held Pidge close and Keith let his head hit back against the wall he had been leaning on as his let out a quiet curse.

Allura’s shoulders shook slightly before she took a deep breath. She looked up from the helmet to Keith and walked towards him. Everyone watched in silent confusion and for a moment Keith looked as startled as everyone else before his features lit up with understanding.

“Allura, no. I can’t….”

Allura shook her head as she stood in front of him. She turned her head towards the paladins to explain,

“Shiro came to me to inform me in case of… something like this. He had a bad feeling going into this battle so he… he chose a successor to the black lion.”

Lance felt his heart sink as she turned back to Keith. Oh hell no. They had literally just lost Shiro to quiznak knows what. _Do not_ drop this on him now.

“Keith… You are the new leader of Voltron. You will be taking Shiro’s place.”

Lance couldn’t stand to see the sight of Keith accept the helmet that Allura held out towards him. He stood up and jumped over the couch and bolted out of the room ignoring the surprised yelp of Hunk as he called out his name.

As they all watched Lance leave the room in shock, Keith pushed the helmet back towards Allura before chasing Lance out of the room.

“You guys stay here. I’ll talk to him.”

\---

Keith ran through the dark halls, only stopping briefly to look in the rooms he thought Lance might have disappeared to. After he ran for about twenty minutes he finally found Lance in the observatory leaning against the wall silently.

Keith entered the room with caution as he tried to think of exactly what to say. He had known something was seriously wrong with Lance for a while now but have never gotten the nerve to talk to him. Now that he was here he didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t really thought this far ahead...

Keith looked at Lance’s figure facing towards the window. The sight of space was breathtaking, yet dull given their current situation. Lance was leaning against a wall staring out into space until he heard the sounds of Keith’s footsteps.

Lance stood up from the wall but refused to turn around and face Keith.

“What do you want?”

Keith took a deep breath as Shiro’s words echoed through his mind.

_Patience yields focus…_

Keith stepped closer to Lance as he spoke in a slow calm voice,

“I just want to talk to you.”

Lance showed no signs of acknowledgment regarding his words so he continued,

“You haven’t been yourself lately. You’ve snapped at literally everyone at least once and I’ve seen how you look when you think no one else is looking. Please… I can’t do any of this knowing that something is tearing you up this badly. I can’t move on with all of… _this_ if you’re not ok.”

Lance felt something inside of him finally snap as he felt laughter bubble from his lips. He continued to face away from Keith as his laugh grew louder and more crazed.

Keith’s eyes widened in shock as he watched Lance practically lose his mind. He reached his hand out towards Lance’s back and whispered out, 

“Lance…?”

Lance whipped around and punched the wall as he stared down at the ground before he looked up, his fiery eyes burning deep with emotion.

“I don’t care if you finally found the one thing you can’t do. It’s not my fault if for once you can’t be the perfect paladin everyone praises constantly. Everything has been about you. _My lion_ called out to you first. _Shiro_ choose you. _It’s always been about you!!!_ ” 

Lance let his angry tears spill over as he shook.

“So don’t come after little ol’ me when things finally get to be too much for you to handle. I don’t care if I’m the weak link, I won’t stand here and let you pity me because you’re the new…..”

Lance took a deep breath as he glared at Keith, whose jaw had dropped in shock. His knuckles were bloody and the wall where he had removed his fist from was slightly cracked. He continued to star down Keith as he walked towards him silently.

“I don’t care what Shiro said to you. I don’t care if the others accept this. I don’t care about any of it any more. You. Will _never_ be my leader.”

Lance turned away and marched out of the room with a dark expression. He heard Keith’s broken voice call out his name but it didn’t matter. None of it did.

Lance just kept walking away.

And he never looked back.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoyed that suffering because I sure did! >:Dc You can also find this posted at my Voltron blog spacemomatyourservice. As usual all comments and kudos are appreciated. See you guys next time!


End file.
